Bantu-speaking Peoples of South Africa - History

History

At some stage after the tertiary dispersal period a settlement at Great Zimbabwe was established as the capital of a trading empire. Around this time there is evidence of coastal trading with Arabs, with the South East Asian region, and even with China. As the southern groups of Bantu speakers migrated southwards two main groups emerged, the Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Swazi), who occupied the eastern coastal plains, and the Sotho–Tswana who lived on the interior plateau. The two language groups have diverged and differ on certain key aspects (especially in the sound systems).

When the early Portuguese sailors (cf. Vasco Da Gama and Bartholomew Dias) rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the 15th century very few Bantu speakers were found there. The predominant indigenous population around the Cape was made up of Khoisan peoples. Following Jan van Riebeeck's settlement at the Cape in 1652 European settlers — mostly Dutch, French Huguenots and Germans, known in the past as Boers (today referred to as Afrikaners) — began to occupy Southern Africa in increasing numbers. Around 1770 Boers migrating North encountered land permanently occupied by Bantu speakers (in particular around the Fish River) and frictions arose between the two groups. This began a pattern in which the new (white) settlers used superior force to subdue and/or displace the Bantu speakers they encountered, much as had been done with the aboriginal Khoisan peoples the Boers had previously encountered at the Cape.

From the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were two major areas of frictional contact between the white settlers and the Bantu speakers in Southern Africa. Firstly, as the Boers moved North inland from the Cape they encountered the Xhosa, the Basotho, and the Tswana. Secondly attempts at large coastal settlements were made by the British in Xhosa territory (now the Eastern Cape), and in Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal).

At the time KwaZulu-Natal was populated by dozens of small Zulu-speaking clans. In 1816 Shaka acceded to the Zulu throne (at that stage the Zulu were merely one of the many clans). Within a relatively short period of time he had conquered his neighboring clans and had forged the Zulu into the most important ally of the large Mthethwa clan, which was in competition with the Ndwandwe clan for domination of the northern part of modern day KwaZulu-Natal. By many accounts Shaka used ruthless military force against his opponents, often adopting a scorched earth policy to destroy or displace civilian populations.

After the death of the Mthethwa king Dingiswayo around 1818, at the hands of Zwide, the king of the Ndwandwe, Shaka assumed leadership of the entire Mthethwa alliance. The alliance under his leadership survived Zwide's first assault at the Battle of Gqokli Hill. Within two years he had defeated Zwide at the Battle of Mhlathuze River and broken up the Ndwandwe alliance, some of whom in turn began a murderous campaign against other Nguni communities, setting in motion what has come to be known as Mfecane, a mass migration of communities fleeing the Zulu. By 1825 he had conquered a huge empire covering a vast area from the sea in the east to the Drakensberg mountains in the west, and from the Pongola River in the north to the Bashee river in the south, not far from the modern day town of East London.

Shaka is well known for the many military, social, cultural and political reforms he used to create his highly organized and centralised Zulu state. The most important of these were the transformation of the army, thanks to innovative tactics and weapons he conceived, and a showdown with the spiritual leadership, limiting the power of traditional healers, and effectively ensuring the subservience of the Zulu church to the state. Whereas previous battles had been limited to relatively minor encounters, Shaka introduced the more deadly stabbing spear to replace the throwing spear, military encirclement to replace allowed retreat of the enemy, and the total destruction of lands to remove any means of sustenance for the enemy.

Shaka integrated defeated clans into the Zulu, on a basis of full equality, with promotions in the army and civil service being a matter of merit rather than circumstance of birth.